Tutor Training
How does Wisdom’s Way work, and what are Best Practices for Wisdom’s Way tutors?
Wisdom’s Way Tutor Training begins with general methods for the Christian and Classical tutor, and goes class by class through best practices, tips, and tricks for tutoring these subjects—whether teaching at home with your own children or tutoring a class at Wisdom’s Way.
Friday Evening
SESSION 1
Introduction, Christian & Classical Methods
SESSION 2
All Knowledge Students—New Lessons: Classical Languages
SESSION 3
Later Knowledge Classes—Overview
SESSION 4
Later Knowledge—Literature, History, & Summaries
Saturday Morning
SESSION 5
All Knowledge Students—Grammar of Grace New Lessons & Other Subjects
SESSION 6
Later Knowledge Students—Morning Devotions
SESSION 7
Later Knowledge Classes—Latin
SESSION 8
Later Knowledge—Little Extras
Saturday Afternoon
SESSION 9
All/Early Knowledge Classes—Other Classes
SESSION 10
Early & Later Knowledge Students—Greek
SESSION 11
Later Knowledge Classes—English
SESSION 12
Later Knowledge—Big Extras
SESSION 13
Later Knowledge Classes—Prep Year & 2nd Year Specifics
Tutor Resources
This is my (Robyn’s) entire Tutor Notebook. There are all sorts of resources we use in our Wisdom’s Way—some that we developed ourselves, and some that we found for free online. There are…
- Blank templates you might like to use.
- Filled-in lesson plans for each week. (You might find my notes cryptic, but sometimes when people see my notes they find them helpful, so I’ve included them all.)
- Lesson plans for Geography, Art, Science, and Classical Music.
- Images I used for Art, Timeline, Geography, etc.
- Promotional and informational materials we created for Wisdom’s Way.
- Handouts I’ve passed out at meetings, if you’d like ideas.
- Miscellaneous other stuff we use.
Please make use of whatever you find helpful!
General
ORGANIZATION FOR EVERY YEAR
Tutor Lesson Plan (blank)
Wisdom’s Way Theme Song (I give every student & parent a copy.)
Oral Interpretation Schedule & Skills Overview
Tutor Planning Meeting Agenda (blank)
Tutor Notebook Cover (blank)
Tutor Notebook Organization (what I use, if it helps)
Trivium Tuesday and Ideas for other books to study
Hymn Singing Lesson Plan; our Hymn Singing director, a local pastor, had to be out one week, and shared his lesson plan with us that week. This is the sort of stuff he does every week. We also made an audio recording of the class one week (toward the end of a schoolyear; that’s why you’re starting to hear harmonies), if you’d like to listen for more ideas. 🙂
ADMIN & PROMOTIONAL
2020-2021 WW Bonham Info Packet
Registration Form (Yes, we charge tuition; the tuitions we take in are really only a drop in the bucket compared to our costs, but we hope to reach the break-even point at some time. In order to make sure everyone who wants to join our local Wisdom’s Way is not precluded by financial considerations, we cap tuition for Tutors and other workers at $250 per family.)
HSLDA Discount Group This is a great program; I recommend joining it.
Calendar I found this editable calendar online. Every new schoolyear, before I begin editing for the new schoolyear, I “Save As” and make a new copy in my files.
IMAGES
Color Divide (background I used for the first page of the Info Packet)
WW logo colors
- blue: 275676
- green: 558b55
- white/cream: f1f1e0
Grammar of Grace & All/Early Knowledge Classes
CYCLE 1
TUTOR LESSON PLANS here
Note: This year of Wisdom’s Way was cut short by government mandates and church closures (spring of 2020); we only met through Week 24.
GRAMMAR OF GRACE MEMORY LESSONS TEACHING NOTES here
These notes are mostly helpful for ideas for handmotions. (Whenever possible, our handmotion would be based on the Timeline image, so check those out, too.)
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES―GREEK
Koine for Kids, 3 pages each week, together in class.
MUSIC PLAN―CLASSICAL PERIOD
Specific pieces listed in the weekly Tutor Lesson Plans. I bought the 99¢ Big Haydn and Big Mozart Boxes, on digital download, from Amazon.
ART COPYWORK here
We gave the children several weeks to work on each Art Copywork assignment, this year. Sometimes, we would overlay a grid on top of the work to be copied, and give the children grid paper instead of plain paper, and instruct them to fill in one grid at a time (even if they could only copy one grid in a whole art class!). Then, we might copy the same work again without the grid.
We also spent several weeks doing Art Appreciation, using What Do You See? Vol. 1, by Laurie Bluedorn. You can buy the digital edition cheap for Kindle. We would look at the pictures on a TV or laptop screen, and I would open up the questions on my iphone. The children loved it and learned a lot.
The weekly assignments are written on the weekly Tutor Lesson Plans.
GEOGRAPHY here
TIMELINE
The children love seeing images and hearing a little bit of history about the Timeline items they learn each week! Here are images I found that I thought were helpful.
Timeline Images All Together
C1_W3_Egypt
C1_W3_Greece
C1_W3_Hammurabi
C1_W3_Tower of Babel
C1_W4_China
C1_W4_Mesopotamia & Sumer
C1_W4_Nineveh
C1_W5_Hittites
C1_W11_Osymandyas
C1_W11_Argonaut Expedition
C1_W11_Fall of Troy
C1_W12_Dido
C1_W12_Homer & Hesiod
C1_W13_Assyria
C1_W13_Romulus
C1_W14_Aesop
C1_W15_Confucius
C1_W18_Alexander the Great
C1_W18_Mauryan Empire in India
C1_W18_Plato & Aristotle
C1_W19_7 Wonders
C1_W19_Euclid & Archimedes
C1_W19_Great Wall
C1_W19_Maccabean Revolt
C1_W19_Punic Wars
C1_W20_Caesar Augustus
C1_W20_Cicero etc
C1_W20_Julius Caesar
C1_W20_Rome Conquers Greece
C1_W23_Jerusalem
C1_W23_Pompei
C1_W23_Ptolemy
C1_W24_Diocletian
C1_W24_Irenaeus & Clement
C1_W24_Justin Martyr & Polycarp
C1_W24_Lucius
PRESENTATION & CELEBRATION here
Here’s how we planned our End of Year Presentation, if you’d like ideas. It ended up being canceled because of the tyrannical overreach of government in 2020… But in God’s providence, that led to lots of other good things; we praise Him, even for the bad!
Cycle 2
TUTOR LESSON PLANS here
One of the mysteries of this year is what happened to my notes from Weeks 20-21. Ah, the things we look forward to learning when we get to heaven…
GRAMMAR OF GRACE MEMORY LESSONS TEACHING NOTES here
Again, these notes are mostly helpful for ideas for handmotions. (And again, whenever possible, our handmotion would be based on the Timeline image.)
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES―HEBREW
Shalom Alef Bet, 3 pages each week, together in class.
GEOGRAPHY―OLD WORLD here
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY (SCIENCE)―EARTH & SKY here
Extras: We displayed these images on a TV screen, so the children could see them better; here are the folders for the pictures we used for the Solar System Tour (W10) and Galaxies (W12).
CONVERSATIONAL SPANISH here
One of our Wisdom’s Way moms is fluent in Spanish; she created this plan for our class. She would read all of these things in Spanish and English every week, and have us say them with her, with repetition, like a language learning tape. It was great!
END OF YEAR PRESENTATION & CELEBRATION
Study Sheet for all of the families to practice with here, and full Program for grandmothers (who might not understand everything our precious angels say) here.
TIMELINE
For Cycle 2, I have images for every Timeline item; they are in order.
C2 Timeline Images All Together
Timeline_C2_W1
Timeline_C2_W2
Timeline_C2_W3
Timeline_C2_W4
Timeline_C2_W5
Timeline_C2_W6
Timeline_C2_W7
Timeline_C2_W8
Timeline_C2_W9
Timeline_C2_W10
Timeline_C2_W11
Timeline_C2_W12
Timeline_C2_W13
Timeline_C2_W14
Timeline_C2_W15
Timeline_C2_W16
Timeline_C2_W17
Timeline_C2_W18
Timeline_C2_W19
Timeline_C2_W20
Timeline_C2_W21
Timeline_C2_W22
Timeline_C2_W23
Timeline_C2_W24
PRESENTATION & CELEBRATION here
Here’s how we planned our End of Year Presentation, if you’d like ideas. It is such a fantastic end to the year, every year!!!!! Don’t skip this; make everyone come and bring the whole family; everyone always loves it!!!!
Cycle 3
TUTOR LESSON PLANS here
GRAMMAR OF GRACE MEMORY LESSONS TEACHING NOTES here
Ephesians 6 Hand Motions also here. (For verses 12–18, we used the hand motions from Scripture Talk DVD.)
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES―GREEK
Koine for Kids, 3 pages each week, together in class.
MUSIC PLAN―ROMANTIC here
We would listen to this beautiful music, and I often even read to the children about the composer, during Art class, while the children were working on their art. I got the 99¢ Big Box for most of these composers; such a wonderful way to teach your children about so much beautiful music!
ART COPYWORK here
First is the basic plan we’re shooting for, followed by the specific art we copied in class this year, and a lesson plan we found online to use for teaching perspective. The old-fashioned method of copywork for learning art is wonderful! We would often keep working on a project for a few weeks.
On Weeks 1-6 and 25-30, we did art copywork.
On Weeks 13-18, we did still life drawing.
On Weeks 7-12 and 19-24, we used Laurie Bluedorn’s book, What Do You See?, Vol. 2, displaying the artwork on a TV or laptop.
Specific weekly assignments in the Tutor Lesson Plans.
CONVERSATIONAL SPANISH here
One of our Wisdom’s Way moms is fluent in Spanish, and she taught us Conversational Spanish for 6 weeks. These are the handouts she gave us and used for class, this year.
PRESENTATION & CELEBRATION here
Here’s how we planned our End of Year Presentation, if you’d like ideas. Everybody loves this so much; we had several families from the community come, too, this year! It’s such a joy for everyone to get to meet everyone else’s grandparents, too; as always, an absolute blast and more than worth all the effort.🥰
Cycle 4
TIMELINE here
We used these songs & poems when we were learning the kings & queens of England.
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES―HEBREW
Shalom Alef Bet, 3 pages each week, together in class.
GEOGRAPHY―NEW WORLD here
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY (SCIENCE)―LIFE SCIENCE here
CHRISTIAN MEN SERVING GOD THROUGH THEIR WORK
For the final 6 weeks of the year, during the free memory work time, we invited different local Christian men to speak to the children about their careers, and how they were able to glorify God in their different jobs. We chose men, rather than women, in order to hold up to our boys the example of diligent work, and also because our girls are seeing examples of women serving God through their work every week, with all of the mothers at Wisdom’s Way. We were thankful to be able to welcome a pastor, lawyer, engineer involved in the Apollo moon missions, and three business owners. More info here.
~~~old stuff we don’t use anymore~~~
MUSIC PLAN―BAROQUE here
After the first week of playing music during The Art of Conversation class, it seemed better not to play music during class; details in the Tutor Lesson Plans.
ART COPYWORK here
This cycle, we had Art & Classical Music class every single week for 24 weeks at Wisdom’s Way. This is the basic plan and the artwork we used for copying; it was wonderful. Details about what we did weekly in the Tutor Lesson Plans.
THE ART OF CONVERSATION here
This was a really fun 6-week class.
CONVERSATIONAL SPANISH
One of our Wisdom’s Way moms is fluent in Spanish, and she taught us Conversational Spanish for 6 weeks. She focused on teaching us Christian sayings, like “God bless you”, and also added greetings, basic sayings, etc. She used several songs, such as the days of the week and the months of the year.
PRESENTATION & CELEBRATION here
Here’s how we planned our End of Year Presentation, if you’d like ideas. It was fabulous; all the grandparents came, too; and we had a lovely feast afterward, of course!
Later Knowledge Classes
2nd Year Later Knowledge
TUTOR LESSON PLANS here
These are the same lesson plans as my Cycle 1 Grammar of Grace/Early Knowledge lesson plans, in case you find them helpful.
3rd Year Later Knowledge
TUTOR LESSON PLANS here
These are the same lesson plans as my Cycle 2 Grammar of Grace/Early Knowledge lesson plans, in case you find them helpful.